I was saddened to read that Marmot’s Hole, a blog focused on Korea and which has long been one of the best regional specialist blogs out there, has closed blog comments. Looking at the link and the current comment status, it’s not clear if there will be no comments or just full moderation. But it’s a sad state of affairs that one of the best blogs out there, which has been in operation for significantly longer than CA’s five-plus years and which has a vibrant commenting community, has had to resort to such measures.

Bloggers can learn lessons from Marmot’s experience. With popularity came a broad and highly opinionated online community. After several years Marmot required online registration for commenting, which gave him the ability to stop random commenters and ban rogues. Of course, rogue commenters can also re-register with different names, different e-mails, and on different computers, so this requires vigilance. Then Marmot had a few posts on delicate topics that revealed the blog version of Gresham’s Law—bad comments drive out good comments. Said otherwise, it only takes one bad commenter to write something utterly outrageous that shifts all commenting in that direction. Finally, the final straw was that Marmot faced pressure from his boss at work for the controversial comments that appeared on his blog. I think this is another strong argument for the ComingAnarchy policy of author anonymity—although I’ve had the pleasure of meeting dozens of commenters and personally corresponding with hundreds more, and have voluntarily waived my anonymity on many occasions.

At ComingAnarchy, on very isolated occasions, we have blocked commenters who poison the blog comment atmosphere with “silent but deadly” measures that involve trickery with their ISP. But this has been very rare, with certainly less than ten in the life of the blog. For better or for worse, both at CA and at our quasi-sister blog Mutantfrog Travelogue, the blog material seems to have a natural ability to self-select a certain type of commenter. I think that’s because the sometimes controversial posts we write are actually obscure and inaccessible in theme and content, and most lunatics can’t be bothered to engage the conversations that emerge. Hopefully the discussion will continue to be the case and Marmot’s latest measures will be the exception, not the rule—because it is reading or engaging in the comment discussion that follows on the initial posts, not the posts themselves, that make blogging worth the effort.

I would like to take a moment to say farewell to Dr. Dan Nexon of the wonderful IR blog Duck of Minerva. His posts (and lectures which he posted) bettered my understanding of IR theory and analysis while simultaneously challenging my biases. Who could ask for anything more from a blog? I will continue reading the crew at the Duck which has just increased its stable of bloggers. Nevertheless, Dr. Dan, I look forward to your return.

Best wishes,

YH

Our man Andy from Siberian Light has started up a new project called Russian News Online, a news aggregator in the style of popurls and alltop. It covers both mainstream media and the Russo-Blogosphere. Looks like the place to be to be on top of what’s going on in Russia. Check it out: http://www.russiannewsonline.com

There has been a sense of dread in the Iranian blogosphere for the past couple of months, but now it is official: Officials admit that Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, has been detained in Iran on charges of spying for Israel. Hoder is the Iranian-Canadian father of blogging in Iran and has often been referred to here at ComingAnarchy.

The commenters at the G&M are willing to let Hoder burn for his lack of judgement in going back to his home country. After having some dealings with him in the blogosphere, I can’t help but feel sorry for him.

Free Hoder weblog
Appeals here
Facebook campaign

I would like to congratulate the Mutantfrog Travelogue crew — longtime real-life friends of Curzon and I — for a great interview in the JapanTimes. MFT is definitely one of the go-to blogs for Japanophiles, or anyone interested in East Asian culture. Keep up the good work gentlemen!

Dr. George Friedman — founder of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm — has been taking his company “Web 2.0” over the past few months. Most recently the boss himself has joined the blogosphere. All of us at CA are/were subscribers of Stratfor. I recently began checking out their podcasts (sorry about the iTunes link Roy) which I know Chirol is a fan of.

The INT lords at Kent’s Imperative have mixed sentiments on this development, and offer their take on Stratfor and the industry in general. KI cautions Friedman to be wary of the level of potential readers in the blogosphere, which offers a dimension of interactivity that Stratfor may not of encountered with its previous consumer set (George does have comments turned on). KI even gives us a shoutout (Cheers!):

For example, their latest piece on Blackwater could well have been far better informed with the cooperation of established bloggers that have long discussed the impact of PMCs (first in our minds is of course Mountainrunner, but also the boys at Coming Anarchy, and Shloky). Let us hope that Stratfor learns from their example, and involves such SME’s in their future products.

The thing I look forward to is the shop-talk, which I hope makes it into the blog. I would like to hear more about the techniques Stratfor uses in doing their analysis. For those interested the Handbook of Country and Political Risk Analysis is a great book detailing what some other private int shops like the EIU do their work.

Via Hidden Unities comes the amazing Soldier of Africa blog about a South African infantry major on assignment in Darfur (or formerly in Darfur, now back home). It’s interesting not only because of the first-hand insight, but also because of the inter-African viewpoint, such as South Africans fascinated by camels, a common fixture in the northern half of the continent.

Lt Col Lloyd assimilating the available transport in Sudan. Eventually he decided to stick to Land Cruisers and aircraft. I doubt if there is any South African after his or her year in Sudan who does not have a photo near or on a camel.

Recommended reading.